Work Text:
“Song Yuqi, stage starts in 15. Please prepare any necessary equipment.”
She heard the raspy male voice, quality reduced by static, call out from the intercom. Letting out a groan and not bothering to respond, Yuqi hung up with the press of a button.
She didn’t know what was happening to her — the nightmarish state of having a clouded head, an unorganized backstage and studio, a jacket wrapped around her that reeked of cigarettes and dust — nor did she even know in the first place. In one way or another, she felt like something within her was going to break or to snap like a rubber band stretched to its limit, and she didn’t know if she could handle another second on this Earth before she takes hold of a handgun and shoots herself in the head.
Yuqi wished she had an option, but she was already far too deep. Another gig awaited her, a crowd raving and cheering outside, and while this would entice an ordinary, run-of-the-mill artist, it felt like hell for her. She couldn’t back out without a notice; her management would then be after her everywhere and her fans would be cry aloud. None of this was her choice.
Music used to be her greatest passion. The thought of an audience willingly tuning in to your self-made work and the spotlight — the fame, the attention — being shone above your head guised the artist life as something great, something big, like it was something easy-going and fun to make a living out of. Not that it wasn’t, Yuqi knew a bunch of others who genuinely enjoyed what they were doing, but no one knew what happened to her. Not even herself.
She’d blown up after releasing a rock single whose lyrics she made when she was an angsty teenager. It seemed appeasing; everyone loved it, everyone tuned in, and everyone rolled with it. But, one thing led to another, and she just wanted to get out of it. Yuqi was merely naive. She didn’t know a lot of things. She didn’t know why she grew to hate that song when she, more specifically a younger version of herself, once considered it a masterpiece.
Maybe because it reminded her of her past. Maybe because it reminded her of the way she wasted her pubescent period on going out and throwing her life away like a middle-aged folk with nothing left on their hands would. She thought everything was cool; she thought the way she rebelled against her parents’ wishes was okay when they only wanted the best for her. Deciding to go on her own path at the early age of 16 wasn’t a great decision. Her parents never wanted her to leave. They thought she still had potential to go back to the nice, little girl she used to be and move forward to the right path, but despite these efforts, young Yuqi chose to run away and move in with an older, yet trusted, friend.
Now here she was: on the brink of going insane right before a midnight show.
The black wooden door from her right opened as she blankly sat on the couch, facing not to the entrance but to the wall, fiddling with a lighter in one hand and a cigarette box in another. From the back of her head, she knew her name was called for a second, yet not once did she turn back. Too consumed by her own thoughts.
Instead of rehearsing or setting up her guitar, she took out a cigarette, lit it, and placed the filtered end in between her red lips. Her head then sunk into her pale hand, fingers running through smooth black hair, as her cig was supported with two fingers. Fucking hell, she thought. Everything ached, but at the same time and ironically, everything was fine. She felt a mixture of both regret and contentment.
“I knew you couldn’t be bothered.”
Yuqi managed to pull herself back to reality and look up at whoever was in front of her. An orange-haired woman with a bob haircut, looking much like a tangerine, whom she recognized as a member of her management — her ratshit management — stood in front of her. With a click of a tongue, she shifted her gaze back onto the floor and rested her head on her fist.
“What do you want?”
“You’re being called outside. I had a report that 10 minutes had passed and you haven’t been on stage to at least help set up,” the woman replied, promptly, and Yuqi stood up with a scoff to face her
“Help set up? I’m the performer, shouldn’t they be setting up for me?” the singer replied matter-of-factly. This was what she hated most of all: not being given alone time for even 10 minutes since she arrived.
“We also have to make sure the instruments, among other equipment, are fixed to your liking.”
“I don’t care — tell them I don’t give a shit. They can put it however they want. I’m just there to sing and make a fool out of my work for people to enjoy.” Yuqi grunted and let out a fume of cigarette smoke.
“Song Yuqi, you are one among our closely monitored star artists. You cannot keep up this attitude, public or not, or it could cause serious harm to your image.” The employee had already been impatient by then, arms crossed and feet planted to stand her ground, but Yuqi wasn’t gonna back out so easily. She was sick. She was stubborn.
“You people don’t know how to leave me alone, do you? I needed some time all to myself, and just when I thought I had it, you come in here whining, and complaining, about my stage when you never had anything to do with it in the first place!”
She was unreasonably lashing out. Yuqi knew she was, yet for some reason, she couldn’t help but release her pent-up anger on someone who was only trying to do their job. But what’s the point if the job never stuck right with her? What’s the point if the job was to endlessly pester her day by day without any break? And what was the point if she was being forced into an image that wasn’t her?
“Yuqi, I am only trying to do the task given to me by the management. I know I’ve stated before it was okay to open up to me before, but at work, I would like to remain professionalism. If you have any complaints, please raise them to the supervisor,” the orange haired girl, who went by Soyeon, explained herself.
“Oh no, I totally get it. Your task is to stick your head all up in my business to report to them that I am actively using heroin and other drugs in the building when I don’t fulfill your wishes! Is that right? You can tell me I’m wrong, but you can’t. I’m always right. I’m always right about you assholes who don’t know how to leave their little puny artists, like me, alone.”
Tick, tick, tick. Yuqi was turning into a ticking time-bomb with each second that passed. Everything was telling her Soyeon, her fans, her family, her management, the world, hated her. Hate, hate, hate. Hatred for others, and for herself, filled her senses, and she needed some type of justice. Anything to defend herself after the mistreatment she’d gained over the duration of her career.
They had a case of severe internal conflict when she, as reported by one of the employees, was allegedly ‘consuming illegal substances in the break room during recording’. Things quickly escalated like fire, and her management had to release a statement that the release of her next song would be delayed for an indefinite amount of time. Yuqi explained herself, and the employee got dismissed, although something was still missing. Tension eventually blew over up until this point — they just had to pull the trigger. Of course.
“Yuqi, that was not what I was here for. Please, have a moment, and calm down.”
The singer started to feel fatigued. Her vision briefly blurred, her head spun, and her fingers let go of her cigarette. Soyeon meant well — she always did since the first day — but with Yuqi’s current state of mind, her manager’s words came off to her as if she was saying she hated her and everything she had.
“Have a moment? How about let me have a moment to myself? Honestly, fuck you. Fuck everyone. You never truly understood me after all. I’m sick of this.”
Yuqi finally made her way to the door as a ‘beep’ from the speakers signified it was time for her to go on stage. With each step she took and each blink she had, she was seeing faces and hearing voices. Was she actively going insane? Or was she too caught up in her own thoughts that they started to integrate themselves into her own reality? A part of her wished she was losing herself, so she wouldn’t have to worry about anything at all, but another also wished she was still sane and normal. There was still some things she hadn’t got to do, after all.
Like apologizing to her parents.
Yuqi shook her head and wrapped the guitar sling around herself. She looked up, the glare of bright red lights invading her line of vision as her audience cheered for her. Like they always told her to, she managed to muster up a smile — which made her look like she was crying for help, mentally — and look pretty for the cameras.
She briefly looked at the public. There wasn’t any wrong in enjoying a beloved artist’s performance just like there wasn’t any wrong in chasing the spotlight. It just didn’t make sense to Yuqi — why would these teenagers idolize someone like her? She’d made a fool out of herself. Many times. Yet people still stick around to hear her play the same chords over and over again just because it feeds their wannabe hardcore personalities.
“These idiots, these fucking idiots — they really paid to see me. They shelled out all their money on me when they could’ve spent it to feed their families. These idiots… don’t know what they’re doing. Pricks,” she mumbled to herself.
She took hold of her pick, strummed her guitar, and caught her breath.
Everything then went too fast for her after that. It was as though her head shut down her body’s systems and put everything else on autopilot — one hand alternating between chords and the other mindlessly strumming along — as she lazily sung the lyrics. It felt like a build-up to something she wasn’t aware of.
The lights, the atmosphere, the crowd…
It was all too fast.
But she loved it.
She loved it more than running away from home, loved it more than drowning herself in alcohol, loved it more than throwing herself away by doing the most pointless and terrible things.
Her mind was ultimately blank, but her body was feeling all the sensations in all dimensions. Third, fourth, fifth, sixth — like her sixth sense awakened to have her feel both nothing and everything — she felt the most content she’d been in years.
The lights got brighter, the cheers got louder, the atmosphere got thicker. A somewhat euphoric rush pumped her bloodstream, the only thing that was left to support her up there, as her subconscious thought about nothing else but to sing and to play just like the first time she got on stage. Her fingers rammed against the guitar strings until they were on the verge of bleeding, and her throat sung to its limits until she nearly lost her voice.
Then, she let herself go.
In a matter of seconds, Yuqi saw nothing but lights, and felt nothing but warmth. She felt as if she was in a space where nothing else mattered but herself. It was only her. Only her. Nobody and nothing to interrupt her.
“Yuqi? Are you awake?”
Her eyes opened to a cream-colored ceiling, warm and inviting light fixtures brightening the room. Her head throbbed to no end like it was about to fall off, and her body ached like she got beaten up by at least thirty people prior. She looked down at herself — she wasn’t stripped bare, she was wearing black jeans, sparkly cropped sleeveless top, spiked bracelets, and black socks. She was also lying on top of soft, white duvet covers.
“Oh, you are. There’s some medicine for you on the nightstand.”
Her eyes were squinted as she tried to look for the source of the voice. Seriously, her head, as well as her body that was nearly paralyzed, was making it hard for her to concentrate on anything else but survival. Something must have happened to her seconds, minutes, hours, perhaps even days ago.
Yuqi saw a woman in the room, but her hair was not orange. They weren’t tan-skinned, and they looked a bit taller.
Miyeon. Cho Miyeon. She thought.
Miyeon was one of the staff in charge of sound engineering. They knew each other for a while, but they were never really close due to Yuqi’s busy schedule.
“Where am I?” Yuqi asked, weakly. She barely had a voice; her throat was oddly sore.
“You’re in one of my guest rooms. I didn’t change you out of your clothes, but I took off your jacket so you could breathe,” Miyeon spoke and tidied the desk near the wall.
“Oh, thanks,” Yuqi mumbled. It was all she could say after all; with this pain, she thought she was literally on her deathbed. She didn’t have any memory of what happened to her, though, so she decided to question her friend in the room.
“What happened to me? Why am I in your house?”
“You crashed out last night. That’s all I can say,” Miyeon answered. It’s not like she didn’t care, she just didn’t want to talk about it in fear of provoking Yuqi all of a sudden.
“Sure, but what happened before that? I didn’t do anything stupid… right?” Yuqi asked again, a bit more uncertain this time.
Miyeon sighed, and pondered, “After you finished your performance, you dropped to the floor and knocked the microphone stand over. I was there watching everything closely, as told, and also because I didn’t want anything to go wrong. No one else seemed to be close to you, so I had to jump in and bring you backstage, and there I volunteered to bring you home.”
She explained it in the best way possible. Still, it felt as if something was missing as if Miyeon was trying to hide an important fact away from her.
“Is that all?” Yuqi urged.
“Not really. When I got you in the lobby, I was told you had a serious breakdown before performing.”
Right, she thought. Yuqi was starting to piece everything together — smoking, thinking, and fighting… fighting with who?
“Who told you that?”
“Soyeon, she looked like she was in tears that time,” Miyeon replied and sat on the edge of the bed as she faced Yuqi.
It was Soyeon she got into a fight with.
Soyeon, her manager, who she’d known for 3 years and developed a romantic connection with as time went by. Co-worker relationships were considered taboo in their workplace, but neither of them wanted to let go of what they were developing. Although they were never a couple, Yuqi didn’t want to give up on her either. She planned to ask Soyeon out at the end of her contract, which was already months away.
Soyeon, who was always there for Yuqi both as a manager and a love interest.
And she let her slip through her fingers just like that.
Would there still be hope for them?
“You okay? You seem to be in a lot of thought. You can tell me anything if you need to talk.” Miyeon attempted to comfort her by lightly placing a hand on Yuqi’s shin.
“No. I fucked up.”